Supergirl
by halfabagoffritos
Summary: Her head aches, her chest burns, her legs may as well not even exist. And her heart is in agony. Turns out she's not invincible, but maybe that's a good thing.
1. Prologue

**Notes: **Picks up at the end of "On My Way". Recovering from that much implied severe trauma is a bitch.

* * *

She feels nothing and everything all at once. Her bones shatter on impact, she knows, but still she feels no pain from it. Glass slices through skin and clothes with equal ease. Still no pain. A dull throb reverberates across her lower back, but not painful. Her head aches, her ears ring, her vision blurs to blackness. Nothing.

Her heart, though... She feels it thrumming the beat of a name, probably several names, each one more concussive than the last. They burn, sear her like a benediction. Her lungs caught fire next and each successive breath gurgled flames.

A muddy voice beckons over the beat but she only groans a single word, that last name pummeled into her soul.

"Rachel."

...

She hears machines first. Pumping, hissing, beeping machines. Then, a voice rises gently over the din. It sings a tune, a lullaby perhaps. It's too soft and her hearing too broken to clearly discern. Another voice calls even louder, with at least a few words that punctuate the haze. "Code blue" and "crashing" and "doctor". She can't understand but she hears them.

She feels pressure on her hand next, and metal cutting into her fingers. She can't respond in kind, though she makes a vague attempt. Tingling spreads up her arm and into her chest, where it explodes into a flurry of pain. Needles, everywhere. Or knives, or an atom bomb detonation. Except her legs. She feels nothing there and can't figure if that's good or bad.

Her eyes are crusty as she cracks open their lids. She blinks and sees…eyes. Chocolate eyes, she thinks, full of hurt and anguish and all those other words that mean similar but can't quite come to her. She tries to memorize those eyes, that moment, but then they fade to a frantic silver blue and it's lost.

A hiss gurgles up through her throat. Not words. She can't form those around the rubber that clogs everything. The pressure on her hand vacates and is replaced by frenzied shrieking.

"-innie? Quinn, darling! Oh, Frannie, go fetch the doctor, or nurse, or anyone!"

A huff, and footsteps approach her. "She's got a call button right here, mom."

A piercing beep. Pandemonium tumbles into the space nearby as she tries to reach up and pull the tube from her mouth. Her hand opts instead to lay limply at her side. Another hiss shapes further into more of a groan.

"Miss? Miss! We're going to need you to step back while we examine your daughter."

A face leans into her slitted view and smiles. A man, older by the graying hair and crinkled eyes. "Welcome back, Miss Fabray."


	2. Countdown

_Five._

She sighs, the hand clutching a bouquet falling limply to the side. No response from her phone, no matter how many times per second she checks. Somewhere deep in her heart, she knows Santana's right. _She's not coming._

Finn calls her name repeatedly, tries to shake her into mobility by her arms before her fathers step in to restrain him. A loud debate between them - and Finn's parents - ensues over whether or not they should postpone. She barely registers any of it over the mantra that echoes through her, body and soul. _She's not coming, she's not coming, she's not-_

"Hey, Rachel," Santana's voice rises above the chaos in her mind. It sounds more than a little annoyed, but Rachel knows that to be more or less her usual state. "Why don't we take a deep breath, get out of these clothes and into something a little less heinously polyester, and then try calling her?" She gives a shrug and glances over her shoulder at Brittany. "Maybe she just can't text right now." A series of nods from the others accompany her.

Rachel sighs again and peers one last time at her phone. Still nothing. A thousand 'what ifs' pound in her head. What if this is Quinn's last 'gotcha!'? What if this is all just a plan to stop the wedding through indirect means? What if she's secretly wanted Finn back all this time? What if, after everything they've gone through, Quinn still doesn't…like her?

She looks up to Finn, whose face registers something between consternation and reluctant acceptance. She starts to apologize, to explain for the hundredth time just how important Quinn is to her even after this mess, but the words don't quite come out. The first time in her life she's ever been rendered so speechless. She supposes the others would give Quinn a medal on any other day but today.

He just nods, though, because it's written in his eyes just how much he knows their wedding won't happen today. "I'll take you home," he says and rubs a hand over her shoulder.

She shakes her head. "No, being alone right now would…" Would result in her spending all night staring at that damn phone. Would result in her stomping down to the Fabray home and demanding an answer. Would result in the angriest and most ill-conceived Facebook status update ever. "Let's just go back to your place. I'm sure Quinn-" She chokes on even the name itself. "-Quinn had a good reason. I'm sure we'll hear from her soon."

They file out of the waiting room, two-by-two. She hears Mercedes speaking to Tina in hushed whispers behind her, no doubt declaring yet another 'hot damn mess'.

_Four._

She curls further into herself atop the Hummel couch, only barely acknowledging the continued presence of Kurt and Finn. They've been trading off in attempts to console her. Finn doesn't quite understand how badly she wanted Quinn there, while Kurt…seems to. At least, a heavy dose of pity reflects in his eyes every time she can bare to glance up. They sing her songs, ones they both have and haven't performed previously in glee club. It's when Finn starts to rumble his way through "Keep Holding On" that the dam breaks and tears course down her cheeks to a rapidly growing wet splotch on the fabric.

"She said-" Rachel tries to sputter through sobs. "S-She said she wanted to be there. She wanted me to be happy." She snorts in a decidedly unattractive manner as she scrubs a hand across her nose. "How could she just…not be there?! The one time I needed her to be there! And after all those times I've been there for _her_!"

Kurt rakes a hand through her hair, only barely loosened from her wedding updo. "I know, sweetie," he murmurs. "I'm sure something just came up."

She gives another snort and catches Finn walking back into the room with another mug of tea. Chamomile. He's learning. Or he just let Kurt actually prepare it. She sits up and takes a tiny sip, careful to not burn her tongue, before setting it down atop their coffee table. "What could possibly-"

Her phone beeps. She falls all over herself in a desperate scramble to reach it.

It's Santana.

_Three._

Her earlier weeping is no match for the sheer agony writ large across her face as she sits in the hospital waiting room. Finn and Kurt flank her, as always, each rubbing a hand over her arms. Blaine just sits dutifully next to them, quiet and picking at his nails. Tina's nearby, balled up on Mike's lap as he tries to keep a brave face. Mercedes just leans against Sam and blots under her eyes every few seconds.

Santana's manic and flailing and ranting in something vaguely Spanish as she marches back and forth. Brittany tries unsuccessfully to tug her into a chair with each pass. Rachel thinks she'd find the entire display hysterical were it not for the cause. Were it not for Judy Fabray sitting just across the way.

She's met the woman all of once and and can't begin to fathom what she could possibly be going through as a mother. Rachel can't even look at her more than a second or two without a fresh set of sobs bursting forth. She can see clear strain in the woman's eyes even from where she's sitting. Another day, another time, she'd be marching over to wrap her in the Rachel Berry-est of hugs.

Movement catches her eye, and she tears away to look around. Her breath catches as she spies the salt-and-pepper-haired doctor, still in surgical scrubs and cap - her fathers imparted many an episode of ER onto her - and twiddling his fingers nervously. Nervous is never good, she knows. Never. "Mrs. Fabray?" he asks, glancing around the area at the several pairs of keen eyes shooting lasers in his direction.

Judy stands up on visibly wobbly legs, purse clutched in her hands. "Y-Yes, that's me…" she murmurs. She looks as afraid to hear news as Rachel herself feels.

"Quinn's out of surgery now, ma'am," he says with a tiny upward curl of his lips. "She's stable." These words are met with the loudest joint sigh of relief on record. Rachel feels nearly faint. "But," he punctuates once the rumbling dies down, "she's not out of the woods yet. We're going to be prepping her for additional surgery in a few minutes, but we thought you might like to see her beforehand."

A nurse steps up to usher Judy off through a pair of double doors, and Rachel leaps to her feet before the doctor has a chance to follow suit. "C-Can we…also…?"

He turns back to look at her, at them all. "I'm sorry, miss. Family only right now." He gives her a smile that she's sure is meant to be reassuring. "She's going to be in surgery for most of the night. You kids should go home and get some rest."

Rest sounds an impossible task but when Finn loops an arm around her waist to guide her out of the hospital, her mind finally registers the sheer exhaustion her body's been screaming this whole time.

_Two._

She insists to Finn and Kurt that they return to the hospital first thing in the morning, even though none of them have heard any updates. Sitting in the waiting room makes her feel better, though, like as long as she's as close as she can get at the moment, Quinn won't fade away from her. From them. She's not the only one whose friend is in danger, she reminds herself.

Santana and Brittany are already curled up in chairs by the time they storm through the sliding glass. Santana meets her gaze for a brief moment, her eyes red and glowing likely from a sheer lack of sleep the previous night. Brittany looks a little more rested, but not by much.

Judy's nowhere to be seen, however. "Is Quinn's mom-"

Santana interrupts her with a shrug. "Haven't seen her," she replies. "Might be home still. Might be with Quinn. Might even be at church."

Rachel sighs and leans further against Kurt's shoulder. More of the waiting game, though she supposes it's a good sign that none of the nurses or doctors have yet approached them with… She can't even think the words, lest they burst forth into a picture of Quinn's broken, bloodied, lifeless body. She closes her eyes, letting her mind sink into happier things. Quinn getting into Yale. Quinn-

A door swings open, shaking her from a doze, and a blonde woman appears, glances around the area, then marches over to where they're all gathered. Younger than Judy, older than Quinn. Same scowl that Rachel's been overly familiar with for several years now. A relative, Rachel guesses, and the word jolts up out of her chair. "You're… Is she…?" So many half-formed questions, all in desperate need of an answer.

"She's awake. You can come in to see her, one at a time."

_One._

She practically wrestles Santana for the chance to be the first among them to see Quinn. She hears Finn calling out whether or not he can go with but the only reply is the nameless Fabray letting the door slam shut in his face. He's just looking out for her, she knows, but even she thinks the question is silly immediately on the heels of being told "one at a time".

She follows through the hospital halls in almost a daze, paying hardly any attention to the medical hustle. It's not long before they're staring at a featureless door with a tiny wired window. She almost can't bare to step forward after Quinn's someone-or-other eases it open and enters, but she does. She can't turn away now…

…but the sight of Quinn bandaged from head to toe, eyes closed and breath shaky, nearly sends her scurrying right back to the waiting room as fast as her legs could possibly carry her. She approaches her bedside on unsteady feet, nonetheless, and Judy gives her a wan smile and encouraging nod. "Q-Quinn…?" she asks in a whisper, reaching for her free gauze-wrapped hand.

Hazel eyes crack open and slowly roll over to look at her. She almost heaves a sob, she's so glad to look at those eyes and-

"Get…out…"


	3. Damaged

"I'm pretty sure I look like a Batman villain right now."

The words could be humorous in another time and place - maybe that one day when they all laugh about this over wine coolers in her Yale dorm room - but, streched out and completely immobile in this hospital bed, she can barely push them out past her dry lips. Even just the slight movement cracks them open again, and blood trickles down her chin anew. Judy is there each time, though, fresh napkin in hand to dab her clean. Quite a change from all those other times she needed her mother, aside from…

"Yeah, you kinda downgraded from Catwoman to Two-Face there, Q."

Her eyes whip - as much as they can through such marred sockets - to the door and meet Santana, who practically strolls further into the room. Even concussed and distracted by a hundred dull pinpricks all over her body, Quinn knows false confidence when she sees it. She _invented_ false confidence, just after introducing herself to the class as 'Quinn' for the first time and just before catching the eye of one Sue Sylvester.

"When did you…" She coughs, one of those barely-there gurgles. Words are still difficult. Breathing is difficult. Everything, really. "You read B-Batman?" she grits out, forever determined to finish what she starts. More blood trickles from the corner of her mouth and it's hard not to notice the sudden overbearing hesitence in Santana's step even as she approaches bedside. Judy off to the other side wrings her hands and looks all of five seconds from pouncing on the nurse call button.

Santana clears her throat as she reaches to grip Quinn's hand. "Eh, you know. Sam and his comic books."

Quinn can feel her lips curling faintly and wetly. She doesn't feel any real pain every time the skin cracks and bleeds, but the increased wetness is hard to miss. Even as she stares up at Santana, she absently wonders why Judy isn't springing forth to the rescue, armed with a hundred tissues. A hundred-tissue-slap, E. Honda style.

Damn Sam and his video games and comics and tv shows and movies, and the impeccable timing of all that random knowledge to blaze a trail through her mind.

"So…you've been awake, what? 30 minutes? An hour? And you've already made Berry cry." Santana sweeps a thumb along the back of her hand. "Pretty impressive. I think you might have beaten your freshman year personal best."

Quinn wants to snort a laugh, so badly. She'd give anything in that moment for the ability to do something so seemingly trivial. Her lungs - and some 'chest tube' she heard her doctors mention off-hand - won't obey, may not obey for a long time yet. The mood turns somber mighty quickly, though, once her head conjures images of tear-stricken cheeks and watery chocolate eyes, of That Girl fleeing the room just as quickly as she'd entered. All at the wheezed demand of two words. "I c-can't… I couldn't…" She tries to explain to Santana, to Judy, to Fran outside in the hall - since only two visitors can actually be in her room at any given time - and all the doctors and nurses and whoever's huddled in the waiting room. And most of all Rachel. There's no words for what she's feeling, though. She can't even explain it clearly to herself.

The heart monitor beeps quicken, and she's certain she must look, well, terrifying between that and her wild hazel eyes and the blood-streaked lips and chin. A rabid dog, maybe. Or one of those weird zombies from whatever that movie was. _28 Days_?

Damn you, Sam Evans.

Pressure spikes on her shoulders and she rolls her eyes around to see both Judy and Santana holding her down, or maybe trying to soothe her. It's difficult to tell which but the former makes her choke out a laugh. Not like she can actually get out of the bed and _go_ anywhere. Maybe she could club someone with her arm casts, be the featured character on a new series of video games. Super Crip Fighter. She'll have a cane for reach attacks.

Sam will be the first to go down.

"Hit the fucking button, Judy! Jesus-"

Next will be Rachel.

Rachel Berry. Rachel Barbra Berry. Queen of the Nile. Would that make her Cleopatra? Beautiful. Ambitious. Deadly. Won't listen. Never listens. So many reasons. Just need to listen. Why the asp? Don't clutch the asp. The asp will drag you down, ruin your dreams, kill you. Let the asp go.

Let Finn g-

...

Fluorescent slices through darkness and silver blue fades into existence. Sober silver blue. She doesn't remember this much clarity in those eyes. "M-om…?" The word sticks in her throat, raw and unfamiliar.

The eyes weep, and a cacophony of wails join them. "Oh, thank God!" The voice tries to say more but it comes out a series of sputters around the tears.

Salt-and-pepper slides into her line of vision, encasing a strained smile. "Gave us quite a scare there, Quinn," it says. Male, older. Familiar? "Gonna need you to take it easy now, okay? Don't want to stress your brain out too much while it's still recovering."

The face slips away again. The voices dim slightly, like they're moving away to speak more discretely. About her. About her injuries. She must have so many. She picks up words such as "hematoma" and "strictly monitor" and "spine" and "therapy soon". She might still be foggy-headed but she knows a couple of those words aren't very good things. In fact, they might hedge on into the 'bad' column.

Something clutches at her hand, and she turns a fraction of an inch to see soggy hazel. "Don't do that again, Quinn," they say. "You need to live, you hear me? We need you to live."

She tries to squeeze back. Not enough strength. Too sleepy. Sleep feels good. Sleep feels right. To sleep, to dream. Of all the good things. Of poetry and stately brick buildings and peaceful parks. Of the smell of fresh ink, and the taste of black coffee. Of soaring through the air with a cape of the lightest steel. Of all the sounds and smells and colors, swirled together.

But not of pink. Never of pink.


	4. Always Worse

She's frankly surprised she hasn't dehydrated to little more than a pile of salt for all the crying she's done in the past hour. Her head's perched on Finn's lap and her feet stretched across Kurt's, and she can see through blurry eyes the worry lines scarring their faces because she hasn't said so much as a _word_ since leaving the hospital beyond, "Take me home." After having only been in…_that_ room for all of a minute, at most.

The words still ring in her ears. They've overtaken _she's not coming_ for most devestating sentence to date. Somewhere in there, she's pretty sure she'll get to hear even worse yet before the year's up but she can't focus on that right now. _Get out. Get out. Get out. Get ou-_

"Rach," Finn breaks the mantra. "C'mon, drink some tea?" He made chamomile again. "Or at least talk to us?"

She shakes her head vigorously to both, smearing tears and snot across his jeans. Kurt's mildly disgusted _tch_ doesn't escape her notice but she heeds it little. What words existed that could possibly describe the mangled body formerly known as Quinn Fabray, and the utterance that ripped from her lips?

Her hand finds its way betwixt Kurt's own and he rubs slightly over the skin with his thumbs. "Was it that bad?" he asks, and her head jerks to glare at him.

_Of course it was that bad! It *is* that bad!_ she screams in her head. A single minute in that room and every scrape and gash and future scar seared itself across her mind. Even with bandages covering them, she'd known their exact placement, all burning redness and hastily-threaded stitches. Each one still shrieks a banshee cry at her from her own memory, angry and vengeful and _get out get out get out get ou-_

"Boys?"

A voice snaps her thoughts like so many bitter, brittle twigs. Carole's, she surmises and also sees walk into the room over Kurt's shoulder.

"Your dad could use your help at the garage this afternoon," she says, tossing keys at Finn.

He starts to protest - they both do - but Carole has that motherly superpower of silencing anyone in the nearby vicinity with the simplest arch of an eyebrow. Only one other person had ever deployed an eyebrow so perfectly, in her estimation.

They gingerly remove themselves from the couch and she stretches out a little across the newly vacant space. She should call her dads, she supposes. No sense imposing further on Carole, and they haven't seen hide nor hair of her since yesterday. At city hall.

_She's not coming._

_Get out._

She curls back in on herself as the tears streak anew, as she barrels head-first back into the mantra. The inescapable truth of Quinn's life hanging in the balance, of all the Yale dreams and fresh starts sent spiralling into the unknown, of…

The couch cushion dips and a hand strokes through her hair, accompanied by a light, kind of off-key - if she's being honest - hum. A lullaby, it seems. "It'll be okay, Rachel." Carole. "She's awake and responding and that's half the battle, right?"

She snorts back a fresh sob and rolls over onto her back to see Carole perched on the edge next to her. "How can you know that, though?" A smile greets her eyes and question, gentle and unassuming. It beckons her to speak, to voice all the pain accumulated over the past day. "Y-You didn't see her… It's so awful… And then what she said…"

"She spoke?" Carole asks, eyebrows raised. "That's great! Faster than I expected, given what I heard from Judy…"

A wail tears through her. _Great._ Great to anyone not her, maybe. "S-She told me…" she tries to force. Maybe saying them aloud will strip their power, will calm the words roiling about inside her head. "S-She said to get out."

_Get out. Get out, get out, get out, get out._

"Oh, honey…" Carole nudges her up to sitting and slides in beside her, wrapping her up in the kid of hugs she always kind of missed as a child. "It's going to be okay, I promise." The soft murmur rustles her hair. "She had some…injuries to her head. It was probably that talking, you know? And the morphine and whatever other medication they have her on."

"But what if it isn't?" She scrubs at her eyes, smearing the scant mascara she'd thought to apply that morning. "What if that's just _her_ and our friendship is _ruined_ all because of this stupid wedding?!" Her breath catches in her throat as she growls out those last couple words. "I-I didn't mean…" she stammers, staring wide-eyed at the tell-tale eyebrow. She swears it pulses, just a bit. "You know I love Finn, but…"

"I know you love my son, Rachel," Carole says, pulling her back into another hug. "You don't ever need to reassure me of that. It's just…been a long weekend for everyone. No one's going to blame you for getting emotional like this, okay?"

She nods against Carole's shoulder, against the growing wet spot formed of tears. A small part of her can't help but focus some resentment anyway, on that band of gold.

"Come on, drink up while I call your dads. You need rest more than anything right now." Carole nudges the chamomile into her hands, and fixes her with a look until she hunches over to take a sip. It's cold, stinging a bit at her tongue though she continues to sip with purpose.

The siren call of _Defing Gravity_ pierces hushed murmurs of Carole on the phone in the kitchen. Rachel can't make out what she's saying but she decides that doesn't matter in the moment as she reaches for her own phone. Maybe it's Kurt, already bored at the shop and ready to peck at her until she opens up. Maybe it's Finn, though she _really_ can't fathom what she'd say to him after nearly lambasting their impending nuptials. Maybe-

Santana.

She frowns at the screen display but clicks to answer anyway. "Hello?" Her voice is a touch garbled, unsoothed by the half-drank tea, and she tries to clear it a bit.

"Fuck you, Berry!" come the tinny shrieks from the other end. "You and your stupid fucking wedding!"

She fumbles with her phone, nearly dropping it onto the coffee table she's leaning over. She's no stranger to receiving such outbursts though at least it's in English this time so she can actually understand and respond accordingly. Not that what she's actually saying makes any sense at that exact moment, her own derisions of the wedding aside. "Santana? Wha-?"

"She almost died! Do you get that? All because of your-"

An icy hand grips her heart and wrenches it. Someone's speaking the words she'd only barely dared to think, but she knows she's not ready to actually _hear_ them yet. "Santana, I-I know she almost died… I saw her…"

"No, you troll, _again_! She almost fucking died _again_ right in front of me!" A burst of Spanish streams over the phone, not a single word of it she's able to understand on a good day but especially not with a fresh stream of tears choking her face. "Fuck you, Berry!" The phone clicks to dial tone.

She's still sobbing when her dads come around to pick her up.

...

A clink from somewhere shakes her awake and she shifts and stretches on her bed. She's not awake enough yet to heed terribly much but her bleary eyes catch the blink of either messages or missed calls on her phone, and she rolls over to snatch it from the nightstand. Probably Kurt or Finn. Or maybe another tirade from Santana, she thinks as she flicks it on and absently notes the time. Midnight.

She'd slept off most of the day after her dads fetched her on home, thankful she didn't have to talk about anything at all once they undoubtedly saw how distraught she was. Quinn almost dying a second time, in the hospital… So much for half the battle.

_Get out._

Indeed, a pair of messages each from Kurt and Finn lay waiting for her reply. Kurt asking if she's okay and does she need him to bring her or do anything. General questions. Finn wondering if she needs a lift to school in the morning. She sighs and fires back a generic, 'I'm okay,' to them both, and a more specific, 'No, Daddy's taking me in," to Finn.

Another clink catches her ear as she hits _send_. More awake, she can tell it's coming from her window, and she tosses her cell to the side to investigate. She inches the curtains to one side and peers out into the night.

Santana. Again, and poised to launch what looks to be another pebble up at her.

Her brow furrows but still she flings the curtains back, and the blinds up, and the window open. "What the hell?" she whispers harshly, punctuated with a glare that's probably not visible from the front yard. It makes her feel better, though.

"Get decent, Berry, and c'mon," Santana responds, with no compuncture about remaining quiet.

Rachel huffs and crosses her arms. "I'll do _no such thing_! Especially not after how you yelled at me earlier!" A pebble sings by her head, missing by a couple inches at most, and she yelps.

"I don't have time for your _shit_ right now. I need you, to put your shoes on, and _get the fuck down here_." Santana cocks her arm back, apparently ready to launch another rock at her window.

She grumbles but crouches to slip a pair of sneakers on before edging out the window. Leave it to Santana to make some dramatic appearance in the middle of the night. "You'd better catch me if I fall," she calls down as she slowly skitters down the trellis.

"Whatever, Berry," is the snort in response.

She manages to prick her hands and scrape her knees a few times on the rosy thorns during her descent into Santana's madness, and makes a mental note to request less dangerous plants be grown on her side of the house in the future. Not that she'll still be living there in a few months with any luck, but that thought just starts echoing _Yale, Yale, Yale_ in her head so she shuts it down right quick.

"Jesus, Berry, my mama could move faster than you."

Her feet touch solid ground and she whips around to start berating Santana…when she's greeted by bloodshot eyes and the faint traces of runny mascara long since wiped away. "What's going on?" she asks in a softer voice than originally intended.

Santana snorts again and glances off to the side, like she's avoiding meeting her gaze. "I just… I need someone right now," she mutters, though her tone is gentle. "I can't talk to Britts about this. She's too scared and I gotta be the strong one. I just…need to lose my _shit_ right now, okay? And Puck's off beating people in his fight club or whatever, and you're the only other one who might get it."

Rachel tries to smile - her lips certainly quiver like they're making a valiant attempt - but she can't quite muster it, because she knows exactly what Santana's feeling. The need to fall apart, like she'd done hours ago. Sort of. That mantra still echos in various parts of her mind. "Okay, okay," she whispers and reaches out to pat Santana on the shoulder. "You want to…here?"

Santana jerks away and stalks away, toward the sidewalk. "Whatever," she gruffs. "The park."

Rachel shuffles quickly to follow, and notices by the streetlight the six-pack of something-or-other clutched in her white-knuckled grip. She squints. Wine coolers. Of course. "Santana!" she says with a finger jerked to point at the bottles. "It's a school night!"

Santana glares at her. "What, you think either of us is actually worried about _school_ right now?"

She has a point, Rachel knows. She'd even contemplated asking her dads to let her skip tomorrow, before passing into slumber earlier. And she _never_ skips. But then, Quinn never almost dies, twice, either. Extenuating circumstances and all that.

They walk in silence. She assumes they're going to the park closest to her house, and then wonders just how Santana managed to get to her house - from, where did she live? Lima Heights Adjacent? - without a car. Probably not a good idea to ask, not with how Santana's stomping a path down the pavement.

A good ten-to-fifteen minute brisk walk later and Santana's hauling them off to Faurot Park's swingset. She perches on one without a word and pops the cap off a cooler. Rachel slinks over to sit on another, and waits for the tirade to begin.

"She was talking, you know?" she begins after a swig. "Seemed okay. Maybe a little groggy. Next thing I know, her eyes are all Exorcist and she's shaking and Judy's, like, a second away from collapsing next to her." Santana shakes her head and pulls from the bottle again. "Christ, I know we haven't been best friends or anything but…I can't lose her like that…"

Rachel can see the tears trickling down Santana's cheeks, dripping to her lap once their path ends, and she's reasonably certain the wetness on her own speaks of a similar visual. "Santana…"

"No!" Santana shouts, jerking the bottle around to point at her. "Don't you, whatever, _placate_ me! You _know_ what I'm talking about!" She polishes off the cooler in a gulp and flings the bottle down, already reaching for the next. "She could still _die_, Rachel, and I can't… I can't _do anything_." Her hands tremble as she struggles to pop the next. "I'm not a fucking doctor or nurse or whatever, so I just gotta sit here and _wait_. It fucking _sucks_."

Rachel scrubs at her face, wiping away some of the teary deluge that only worsens with each spoken word. "You know what she said to me?" she asks, voice rough. "She said…_get out_." She laughs a sob as the mantra leaps to forefront in her mind. "That's it. That's all she said, and it keeps repeating in my head. I keep seeing her there, on the bed, just a _mess_. And all she says is _get out_."

Santana doesn't respond, at least not verbally, but a few seconds later Rachel hears a hissy snap and then feels something cool bump her arm. She looks down to see an offered wine cooler, already opened, and takes it without thinking. Raspberry-pomegranate flavored.

"It's bullshit, is what it is," Santana mutters around a mouthful of pink. "What, three months til graduation? Couldn't even wait that long to go and get herself killed."

Rachel winces as she sips her own cooler, the tartness enveloping her tongue and coating her throat. _Couldn't even wait that long_… The words push up her throat before she can think to even stop them. "Earlier, about my wedding…" she says. "You think it's my fault, don't you? That Quinn's…"

Santana swigs at her drink, then shifts slightly on the swing to look her in the eye. "Well, I didn't say anything before 'cause, I mean, it's your life. If you wanna ruin it with Finn, that's your business."

Rachel cuts her with a glare, or tries to but Santana plainly doesn't give a damn.

"Q was right, though. Kinda, anyway." Santana kicks her foot out to nudge Rachel's own. "You got the best shot of everyone to make it big and you're sticking to Doughboy-"

Another glare, equally unheeded.

"-because, what? You think it's true love and perfect and shit? You're just afraid." She pauses to gulp down more cooler. "He's your back-up plan, your failsafe. Even if you don't make it on Broadway or wherever, it's okay 'cause you still got Finn Hudson, right?"

Rachel's eyebrows arch and she starts to reply about how grossly unfair that is, how she really does love Finn and wants him in her life for good times and bad, how-

"Nuh uh," Santana stops her with a hand jerk. "You don't get to talk right now. You asked me a question. I get to answer it without your bullshit interruptions." SHe pulls again at the bottle. "Anyway, I don't like the guy all that much but is that even fair to him? To just be the guy to catch Rachel Berry when she falls? Who wants to ever be that guy?"

Rachel looks at her lap, feels more tears coming. Each word slices clean to the bone, though they don't drill deep like _she's not coming_ and _get out_. "So you think this is my fault?" she murmurs eventually. Whispers, really. She's certain if Santana were any further away, she'd not hear a single bit of it.

Santana snatches a third bottle and twists it open. "Yeah, I think you probably owe her one."

Rachel turns those thoughts over in her head. Owe her for…the accident. For stopping a wedding that probably shouldn't have happened anyway. At least, not this quickly. She can't even begin to figure how she could explain that to Finn, after his proposal and excitement at marrying her. That maybe they should wait until after graduation, if not later. Wait until she has her foothold in New York. Until he's found what he really wants to do, what his dream is. She doesn't even notice that she's finished her wine cooler until she's tugged off the swings entirely.

"C'mon," Santana says, snatching the empty bottle and sticking it in the cardboard pack with the others. "Let's get you home."

...

It's lunch hour before she actually sets foot inside school. Puffy, reddened eyes signaled to her dads a sheer lack of restful sleep the night before - even if they'd no idea of her midnight excursion with Santana - and they let her doze away the morning with a note excusing her absence from morning session. She ambles into the courtyard and over to her usual table, where Finn and Kurt are already seated.

They jump up in unison - living together has done wonders for their synchronicity, she thinks wryly - to greet her but she waves them off with a yawn. "I'm…fine," she murmurs as she sits next to Finn. "Sleepy, but fine."

Finn tucks an arm around her shoulders. "You hear anything about Quinn yet?" he asks while Kurt picks at some carrot sticks, no doubt packed with love by Carole that morning.

Rachel hopes to be that good a mother to her future children. "Mmm, no…" she says with a shake of her head. She doesn't dare tell them about Quinn nearly dying again yesterday. That's between her and Santana, and Judy. No sense upsetting everyone else, and surely they'd all know by now if Quinn had actually… She shakes her head again. Terrible thoughts.

"I can't believe I actually told her she didn't have it nearly that bad…" she hears Kurt murmur around a carrot as he stares off into space.

Rachel jerks to attention. "You told her _what_?"

He shrinks back in his seat and twiddles his fingers together. "When Karofsky… I don't know, she said she didn't understand what could drive someone to…that…and I might have laid into her…a little."

He looks sheepish at least, she decides. But still… She reaches across the table to still his fidgeting hands. "That's… I know getting bullied like you did hurts, a lot," she says as she intertwines her fingers with his. "It hurt me too, all the slushies and names. But she didn't exactly have a walk in the park either…"

Finn huffs. "And now she's all laid up in a hospital," he mutters around a pretzel. "Quinn can't catch a break, like, at all."

Rachel turns her gaze over to him and words flash through her head. The wedding. The accident. That room.

_Get out._

"F-Finn, I… We…" she chokes out, before a hand snatches her elbow and nearly jerks her clean off her seat. "What the-"

Over Finn and Kurt's cries of _what the hell!_ and _hey!_, she hears Santana in her ear. "Need to talk, Berry. Right now."

She nods and stands more surely, patting Finn on the shoulder and giving Kurt a nod. Whatever Santana might need at that moment is almost certainly important to approach her at lunch like this. Might be Quinn news… "I'll be right back."

Santana guides her to the building proper and into an empty bathroom, then whirls around without further preamble and blurts, "Quinn's out of surgery again."

She cocks her head to one side. "That's good…right?" Wouldn't it be? Unless something had happened and her condition worsened overnight and… No, terrible thoughts.

"Y-Yeah…" Santana drawls, eyes darting everywhere but to meet Rachel's own. "She's alive…and awake, I think. Judy didn't really-

"What aren't you saying, Santana?" she asks, crossing her arms. She knows her to be direct to a fault, and the hedging around can only mean bad things. Something happened. Something's wrong.

Santana sighs, and looks her in the eye. Her own are weary, freshly bloodshot. "You can't see her," she finally says.

Her eyebrows raise of their own volition. That doesn't sound _too_ bad to her… "Well, I'd assume not if she just got out of surger-"

"No," Santana says. "I mean, you _can't_. Her doctor, like, said she got another…brain bleed or something, from stress. Something stressed her out to where she almost _died_."

The gasp comes unbidden.

"And Judy told him I'd mentioned you right before she started…seizing." Santana looks at the floor, but she can see tears leaking from the corners of her eyes. "So yeah, doctor's orders. You can't see her. She has to rest so her brain can heal 'cause she can't start therapy while her head's all…fucked up."

Therapy? "What do you mean?" she asks, her mind already conjuring a thousand meanings and scenarios, each more dreadful than the last.

"She…she can't walk, Berry. She can't feel anything! She…" Santana chokes audibly and slams a hand over her mouth as though she's trying to force the words back down her throat and into nonexistence, but none of that matters anymore.

_No. No, no no no no no…_ Her eyes scream the words her lips won't dare speak. Speaking them makes them real. Makes it real.

Santana visibly gathers what's left of her wits - actually hitches her shoulders back and sucks in a breath and looks very much like she could blow down a thousand brick houses to the dismay of so very many little pigs - to finish destroying her world. "Quinn's paralyzed, from the waist down."


End file.
